First address

In his first address to the nation, caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso has reiterated the assurance made only a few days ago by the army chief that the general elections would indeed be held on time and power duly transferred to the elected government. Such assurances should, of course, not ordinarily be necessary. In any democracy, this should be the standard course of action. But we do not live in ordinary times. The frenzied spree of violence seen in each of the three smaller provinces has created all kinds of doubts about the polls and unleashed a flood of rumours. Even now, fear plays a dominant role in the process, and could, indeed, determine many things such as the turnout. And the turnout could have a very important impact on the results themselves.



Therefore, Prime Minister Khoso’s calm speech, offering reassurance that every effort will be made to hold a peaceful election is, in many ways, soothing. It helps generate some sense of confidence that the balloting exercise will take place on schedule, as planned and without any disruption. Such assurances are necessary in helping to bring out people to vote in the current environment of violence and uncertainty. This is important given that we are moving towards what we hope will be Pakistan’s first constitutional democratic transition. If all goes well, or relatively well as we hope it will, this would be a significant achievement for the caretakers.

It is also a good sign that they have accepted responsibility for making sure that this does, indeed, happen. We all know that an election that is in any way prevented from moving ahead as it should, or is tainted by violence and allegations of unfair play, would be disastrous for our nation at this juncture. We must hope, therefore, that Mr Khoso and his team have their plans well worked out and are able to conduct the polling exercise as is required so that we can vote for a government of the people’s choice and hope this administration will then be able to solve the many problems we currently face by adopting policies based on the wishes of the people and their desire for harmony within our country.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 6^th, 2013.